Dodo

Living on the remote island of Mauritius, dodos didn’t have any predators. They ruled the roost. So when European explorers started coming to the island in 1507, dodos weren’t scared. Why should they have been? They’d waddle over to say hello. The Portuguese gave them their name. Dodo means fool in that language. And fools the dodos were to be so trusting. Their friendliness and the fact they couldn’t fly made them an easy target for the Europeans, who enjoyed hunting. By the seventeenth century, there were no dodos left. So foolish. And sadly, so extinct.